Scroll(Scrolling menusLet navigation menus and toolbar scroll with the rest of the page.)Fix(Fixed menusFix navigation menus and toolbar at the left side of the screen, independently from scrolling the page.)+/–()Abbrevations:Abbr(Expand abbrevations, acronyms,and show other additonal information within continuous text)Abbr(Do not expand abbrevations, acronyms,and do not show other additonal information within continuous text [except hovering])

Help, Web Standards and Browsers

Here we provide information for using this website as well as on related issues of standard compliance regarding usability, accessibility, web technologies, and user agent compatibility. If you have any problem with our website regarding these subjects, please get in contact with us.

Help is given to visitors using different devices or software types. Please have a look at the general hints and at the specific hints for your device or software type. We provide help for visitors

using any kind of device (general hints)

using an auditive device, like a screen reader

using a visual device, like a screen display:

using a text browser

using a graphical browser in general

using a graphical browser by keyboard

using a graphical browser by mouse (the most common case).

Using any kind of Device (General Hints)

No opening of a new browser window will be forced by this website, neither by external or internal links nor by downloads, as it is recommended for web usability and accessibility. You will have complete control over opening new windows; if you want you can use the features of your browser (using the File section, shortcuts or the context menu by mouse right-click).
There is an exception regarding some specific help information: They appear in a small pop-up window, if your settings allow Javascript and pop-ups. Links to these help information are associated with a hint that a new window will be opened. If you have disallowed pop-ups, these links will open the help page within the active window.

The Structure of this website is given in the sitemap as well as in the navigation menus. The main menu leads to the specific content pages, while the meta navigation menus indicate more general pages, like sitemap or help.

Language can be selected page-specificly by activating the links of the flag symbols for "To the English version of this page" and for "Link zur deutschen Version dieser Seite" (German version), appearing before the main content (in a graphical browser displayed on the right side). The flags will only have a link for the language that is not actually used on the current page.

How to register our news feed is explained in detail on our web feed page.

Using an Auditive Device, like a Screen Reader

Jump directly to main content, navigation, and other parts of each page by activating anchor links provided at the top and end of each page.

Top and end of each page can be reached immediately by activating the top and end links, appearing at the end or top of each page.

Links to external pages are marked with "- external -", indicating that you will leave our website by activating this link.

Links to pages in another language have a hint naming the language, like "- German".

Downloads are indicated by a hint to the file format, like "- PDF".

Your current location within the structure of the website is indicated by the hint "You are here:" before the menu item belonging to the current page. As it is recommended for usability, the current page is listed, but not linked within the menus. Therefore the current page won't appear in a list of links of the page.

Additional information, like expanding abbreviations and acronyms, is provided by a special feature – apart from the title attribute, which isn't used by most screen readers. If your screen reader relies on a text browser or on the source code of the page, most of the expanded information will always be read, within brackets. If your screen reader relies on the screen display of a graphical browser (like JAWS does), you may need to activate the link "Abbr" to get additional information. Here is an example after the link "Abbr": ex.(Example for expanded information). You should have heard a short example within brackets, at the latest after activating the link named before.

Printer-friendly layout is provided automatically by this website. In addition, there is a type of preview for graphical browsers (see below).

Using a visual Device, like a Screen Display

Using a Text Browser

Jump directly to main content, navigation, and other parts of each page by activating anchor links provided at the top and end of each page.

Top and end of each page can be reached immediately by activating the top and end links, appearing at the end or top of each page.

Links to external pages are marked with "- external -", indicating that you will leave our website by activating this link.

Links to pages in another language have a hint naming the language, like "- German".

Downloads are indicated by a hint to the file format, like "- PDF".

Your current location within the structure of the website is shown by the hint "You are here:" before the menu item belonging to the current page. As it is recommended for usability, the current page is listed, but not linked within the menus.

Additional information, like expanding abbreviations and acronyms, is provided by a special feature – apart from the title attribute, which isn't used by most text browsers. In a text browser most of the expanded information will always be given, within brackets. If it is not, activate the link "Abbr". Here is an example after the link "Abbr": ex.(Example for expanded information). At the end of the last sentence, there should be a short example within brackets, at the latest after activating the link named before.

Printer-friendly layout is provided automatically by this website. In addition, there is a type of preview for graphical browsers (see below).

Using a Graphical Browser in General

Every interactive element (links, linked images, etc.[and so on]) reacts to your mouse or keyboard by changing colour and borders and/or by showing a little box or "tool tip". Visited links look different than unvisited links, even within the navigation menus. (Unfortunately, changing most of the display features by the toolbar will set prior visited links back to "unvisited").

Top and end of each page can be reached immediately by activating the top and end links placed at the right, near to the browser's scroll bar.

Links to external pages are marked with an arrow icon , indicating that you will leave our website by activating this link.

Links to pages in another language have a flag symbol, like .

Downloads are indicated by an icon for the file format, like .

Your current location within the structure of the website is shown by a little arrow "You are here:" before the menu item belonging to the current page. As it is recommended for usability, the current page is listed, but not linked within the menus.

For animation control within the graphical overview of global challenges you will get options by right-clicking, which opens a context menu for stopping, playing again, etc. The animation will only appear if your browser has a Flash plug-in (version 4 or higher). Unfortunately this plug-in doesn't provide animation control by keyboard. Alternatively a static graphic is provided, containing the same information. The printer-friendly layout will always show the static graphic.

All menues are placed at the left side, and you can choose between fixed or scrolling menues: The fixed menues will always be available at the same place, despite of scrolling the page. (Not working below version 7.0 of Microsoft Internet Explorer.) When activating the link Scroll, subitems will be shown and the expanded menue will scroll with the page. The link "Scroll" will be replaced by the link Fix, which can be used to restore the fixed menue.

Font-size can be altered by using your browser's keyboard shortcuts, which are shown for the most common browsers by the tool bar on the left side. Alternatively, you can select font size within your browser's menue, using the View section. The selected font size will apply on all pages and websites you visit, until you change your selection again. Global2015 website is designed for a wide range of font sizes and it has a flexible width (within a range that extends at least from 800 to 1280 pixels).

To expand abbreviations, acronyms, and to show other additional information within continuous text, two options are provided:

By hovering the text with your mouse a little box will appear, showing the expanded abbreviation. A dotted underline and the help cursor indicate that additional information is available.Just try ex. 1(Example 1) or ex. 2.

By activating the link Abbr for "Expand abbreviations" within the toolbar on the left side, expanded abbreviations will be added within brackets to the continuous text. This will apply until you activate the alternate link Abbr for "Don't expand abbreviations" (including printing).Here is an example after the link "Abbr":ex.(Example for expanded information).

Colours of text and background can be altered by activating one of the five coloured fields (including the letter "A"), which you find at the bottom left of the website. We are providing:

a standard screen layout with blue text on white background

a higher brightness contrast with black text on white background (some prefer it, some do not)

the same brightness contrast reverse (white text on black background, as it may be helpful on LCD(Liquid crystal display) or TFT(Thin-film transistor) monitors, or notebooks)

and another colour variant with green on sandy just for your pleasure.

Your selection will apply on every page of this website, until you change it again. (This is an important advantage compared to the similar feature of some modern browsers to select the colours by choosing a style within the View section.)
Alternatively you can alter the colour settings of your browser (using the settings or Internet options). In addition, most modern graphical browsers like Firefox allow to switch off all layout styles (using the View section) and display linear text with black on white, respectively your personal colour and font-size settings. These features will apply on every page, too.
Unfortunately, changing the display features of the toolbar will set prior visited links not to be considered as visited. These will appear in the colour of unvisited links again. Because of adding variables to the links, your browser will recognize them as new links. If you restore the prior display setting, all the links that you have visited in this display setting will be shown as visited.

Printer-friendly layout is provided automatically by this website but you can select a specific type of preview by activating the printer symbol at the bottom left. It changes the colours to black on white and blanks the background image, the menus and some other features in order to print primarily the article you want. To restore the screen layout, activate the screen symbol which is located on the left side of the printer-friendly layout.
Using modern browsers the printing itself should be independent from using this feature, because they will receive the same layout directives with or without activating it. But Flash animations in printer-friendly layout will be replaced by a static graphic because most browsers have difficulties printing animations (incompleteness, distortion, etc.).
Your browser's printing preview will deliver a more specific presentation of the printout. Especially it would fit into the page size given in your settings. We don't try to imitate a certain page size (like A4 portrait) for not overriding your personal settings (maybe A4 landscape, etc.).
Within the printer-friendly layout you can activate the link URI to add the web address (URI[Uniform Resource Identifier]/URI[Uniform Resource Locator]) to each link within the text for your print-out (not working in Microsoft Internet Explorer).
The printer-friendly layout is useful also for saving an article on your local computer, especially if you want to send it as an email attachment to another person.

Using a Graphical Browser by Keyboard

Tabbing (navigating by hitting the tabulator key) first introduces quick links in the top right corner of the web site. These quick links lead to (in order of appearance): main content, navigation, help, and language. (Not working in Apple Safari and Microsoft Internet Explorer, and neither in Opera because Opera uses tabs in forms only, while its other shortcuts [a/q, Shift+arrow keys] don't work with links not visible). Next in tab order (ink is highlighted when activated) are home, link to end of the page (at the bottom right), and the navigation menus. Last tab is the link to top of the page. On the contact page the contact form is the first tab. Within the metanavigation menus tabbing shows up additional information on the menu items (not working in Microsoft Internet Explorer).

Access keys are provided as keyboard shortcuts to select important pages of this website. They are shown within the menus, and within the sitemap (for example the access key for the homepage is zero). Numbers are chosen for access keys to minimize conflicts with browser specific shortcuts.

Using a Graphical Browser by Mouse

Link anchors are shown by hovering the mouse over headlines or keywords that have an anchor. This way you can identify a specific target within a page, e. g.(for example) if you want to address it with a hyperlink on your website or within an email, etc. (Displaying link anchors does not work with Microsoft Internet Explorer.)

To make this website useful for its visitors it is designed following recommendations for usability and is complying with the standards for web accessibility and web technologies (like markup languages). Accessibility is important because users have different abilities and use different user agents (graphical browsers used by mouse or keyboard, text browsers, screen readers, etc.) and because of search-engines and other machine-processing that provide helpful information for users. For these reasons we refer to the following standards:

By using the following links you can check the XHTML and CSS compliance . Additionally you can use the link to the XHTML validator within the footer of each page. (CSS is identical for each page.)Global2015 news feeds comply with the XML-based standards Atom (Atom Syndication Format) 1.0 by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and with the file format RSS (RDF Site Summary) 1.0, relying on the standard RDF by W3C.

By its standard compliance mentioned above this website is usable with different browsers and other user agents (graphical browsers used by mouse or keyboard, text browsers, screen readers, etc.). Adaptations for specific browsers were only made within the limits set by web standards. Global2015 website was successfully tested for compatibility with the following browsers or user agents:

Graphical Browsers:

Apple Safari 2.0.4

Konqueror 3.2.3*

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0, 6.0 SP 1, 5.5*, 5.01*, 4.01**

Mozilla Firefox 2.0, 1.5.0.7, 1.5, 1.0

Mozilla Navigator 1.7.13, 1.7.0, 1.4, 1.3*, 1.0*

Mozilla SeaMonkey 1.1, 1.0

Netscape Navigator 9.0, 8.1.3, 8.02, 7.2, 7.1*, 7.0*, 4.75**, 4.6**

Opera 9.2.1, 9.0, 8.52, 8.0*, 7.54*

* Some minor displaying issues.
** These old versions display only a strongly simplified layout. Previous versions of these browsers, as well as NCSA Mosaic 1-3, and Cello 1.0.1 (by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School), don't display the layout at all and only show linear black text, white or grey background, and sometimes not all the graphics.